Topping the list of upgrades included with TSM version 5.4 are several information security and protection features such as encryption support, key management, and data shredding. Beefing up storage security is nothing new, but IBM is now making the management of these tools and the management of the storage infrastructure possible through a single interface.

"We introduced the ability to encrypt data to tape last year, but it was previously just in a service stream. Now encryption and key management are built into TSM. This provides additional security, especially if you're taking your tapes off-site for disaster-recovery purposes," says Tricia Jiang, spokesperson for IBM's Storage Software division.

The new TSM version 5.4 data-shredding feature allows the TSM server to overwrite data that is moved or deleted from designated storage pools, protecting deleted data and ensuring compliance with privacy requirements. IBM's Jiang says data shredding offers users the confidence that they can now support the full lifecycle of information lifecycle management from creation to destruction of information based on compliance policies.

On the hardware front, TSM now has the ability to generate and manage encryption keys for IBM's System Storage TS1120 drives, IBM's tape encryption solution. This feature can boost performance by allowing encryption on the tape drive, alleviating the encryption processing at the source.

The new TSM features also enable NAS devices, such as IBM's System Storage NSeries, to take advantage of the storage management hierarchy capabilities, including centralization of tape resources, off-site vaulting, and inclusion in disaster-recovery plans automatically generated by TSM.